


Standin' It (Winter)

by Sherloqued



Series: Between Hay and Grass [4]
Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M, Tell-Tale Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:36:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherloqued/pseuds/Sherloqued





	

The weather reports were warning of a blizzard with high winds, then turning bitterly cold, temperatures in the low single digits, below zero at night, no relief in sight.   What a winter.  One for the record books.  He'd just gotten back from town, from the new supermarket, to buy enough supplies to get him through for a good while until he could make another trip -  five-gallon storage containers for water in case the pipes froze up, bread, a pound of butter, a sack of potatoes, bacon, coffee, sugar, a handful of TV dinners (the fried chicken ones were good), some canned goods - evaporated milk for the coffee, somethin' sweet.   A Jumbo box of soap powder.   He had venison from this year's hunting trip, back in November.

Then he fidgeted in the checkout line, waiting with the other hardy souls who persevered here in spite of it all and seemed to have converged all at once in anticipation of the storm, wanting to get their shopping done and get out in a hurry, but also with a warm sense of connectedness, that they were all in this together.   Said hello to some people he knew, a buddy from work.   Remembered to check his supply of batteries in case the power went out.   He asked the imperturbable cashier, Sherree, to add in a pack of cigarettes, as an afterthought, and some matches, while she bagged up the groceries.  
  
"You take care, way out where you are, in this weather." she smiled and said.   "Drive careful now."  
  
"You bet."  
  
He thanked her and bid her the same.

Then to the liquor store for a fifth of Old Rose to warm his belly, and make sure to fill up the truck at the gas station.    A good book in case there was no TV or radio.  Leaned the shovel, snowshoes, ski poles up against the wall by the door where he could get to them easily, settled in.

He would feel the cold deep in his joints and bones.  It would bow his head and hunch his shoulders as he made his way through it, make his reddened knuckles crack and bleed.

When it was over, icicles hung like skeans from the roof of his trailer, shattered like glass when he'd knock them away or pull the door to, the noisy wind giving it an extra push and making the whole place tremble, waking him up from his sleep, falling and crashing.   They would dam up the rain gutters and cause the roof to leak, reminding him that he hadn't gotten around to fixin' it, along with the persistent drip, drip of the faucet, left on at a slow trickle as added insurance so that the pipes he'd insulated with old towels and rags wouldn't freeze.   He'd jammed up the drafty windows with them too.  
  
Nearly four feet of snow had fallen; almost completely covering the mailbox.  Snowdrifts piled up high against the sides and the door, blew across the road; at times obscuring his vision.  He hadn't remembered this much snow since '78.   That storm was vivid in his mind, would always remain so despite other storms and what the record books said because he'd been with Jack that year, winter camping, happily dovetailed warm against each other like a couple of damn youthful fools, in a half-domed tent up in the Winds that from afar must have glowed like a warm, incandescent lamplight and looked like the only sign of life for miles in a sleeping, frozen landscape.  Didn't know if he could do that now; freezin' yer ass off like that, he was gettin' too old for it.   But he wouldn't have traded it for anythin', and the memory of it would never fade. 

 

* * *

                                                           
   
After the wind died, there was silence.   Not even a bird.  It seemed colder without the sound of it.  The critters all must be hunkered down somewhere too.   Smart; smarter 'n people sometimes, people who just didn't know when to quit.   But it was beautiful too, when it was new and fresh and unspoiled, coverin' everything, especially the trees, in pure white and muffled softness.   Dangerous-looking icicles became prisms; snow, sparkled like diamonds in the early morning sun against a big cloudless powder blue sky, or reflecting the warm colors of sunset in the evening.    He looked out the window, and the snow was beginning to fall again, gently now.  
  
He was gettin' by, would get by.  But it only made him aware of how utterly alone he was.  In the insular, remote safety of this place and his day-to-day routine, he just hadn't realized how much.


End file.
